For Healthcare Providers

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Healthcare professionals, including pediatricians, primary care physicians, and emergency personnel, as well as sports medicine, rehabilitation, and neurology/ neurosurgery specialists may all be involved in coordinating and monitoring treatment of injured patients. Many children and teens can be managed by a primary care physician with basic training in concussion evaluation and management, while some will require more specialized concussion evaluation and treatment because of a more complicated injury and recovery.

Facts:

All concussions are serious

Most concussions occur without loss of consciousness

Recognition and proper response to concussions when they first occur can help prevent further injury

When in doubt, sit them out

What Children’s National offers

The Children’s National SCORE Concussion program advocates nationally for best practices in concussion diagnosis, treatment, and management. This includes the recommendation that a patient have a full assessment by a healthcare professional with training in concussion evaluation and management after a suspected or actual concussion before returning to the field of play or to school.

Partnering in care:

If a patient has suffered a concussion and you would like a specialty consultation or evaluation to assist you in developing a management plan, please call our appointment line at 202-476-2429.

Resources for Healthcare Providers

We have partnered with colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in developing these resources useful in caring for young athletes:

Training seminars:

As a primary author of the CDC’s Heads Up: Brain Injury in Your Practice, we offer educational seminars to healthcare colleagues and organizations to train in clinical skills for concussion evaluation and management. If you would like to learn more, please contact us.

General information:

Smart Phone & Tablet Apps for Youth Concussions

Gerard Gioia, PhD, Director of the SCORE Concussion program at Children’s National, has collaborated with colleagues at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and PAR Inc. to develop smart phone and tablet applications (apps) for youth coaches, parents, professional trainers, and healthcare professionals to help them recognize and respond to concussions.

The app for youth coaches and parents integrates information that Dr. Gioia developed with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Heads Up initiative. Parents and coaches answer basic questions about the signs (what they observe) and symptoms (what an injured athlete reports) to determine if the athlete has suffered a suspected concussion and how to respond. Additionally, an email interface allows detailed information taken on the field to be sent immediately to the athlete’s parents and physician.

The app for healthcare professionals, called the Concussion Assessment and Response™: Sport Version (CARE-Sport Version) helps athletic trainers, team physicians, and other qualified health care professionals assess the likelihood of a concussion and respond quickly and appropriately to this potentially serious medical situation. From the instant a player is injured, the app guides trainers and healthcare professionals through a survey that helps rule out a cervical spine injury, evaluate concussion signs and symptoms, and assess cranial nerve function.

Dr. Gioia recently demonstrated how the app for youth coaches and parents works, illustrating the step-by-step questions used to determine whether an athlete may have suffered a concussion and including how to respond to a potential injury.